I was able to attend the scrimmage this morning.
Before I get into the details, the obvious caveats apply: it is only a single practice, I’m not an experienced football analyst (just a long-standing Cal football season ticket holder), and it is really hard to track everything going on. Shout-out to Jessie, who does an amazing job tracking stats and players for all the practices. I probably got some of the details wrong (hard to see jersey numbers sometimes, but the big picture is hopefully directionally right). My main focus was on watching the Cal offense.
I was there for most of the scrimmage and saw 12 offensive drives. It was 11-on-11, starting on the offense’s 35 yard line, in full pads, but no real tackling to the ground (refs would blow the plays dead with a whistle). If the offense didn’t convert on 3rd downs, the drive ended (no punts) or a FG was attempted if in range.
Jack Plummer and Kai Millner had the vast majority of the snaps, taking turns after each drive was complete. The order and the results were:
Bottom line: of the 12+ drives, only one resulted in a TD.
In the next few posts I’ll offer some observations…
Before I get into the details, the obvious caveats apply: it is only a single practice, I’m not an experienced football analyst (just a long-standing Cal football season ticket holder), and it is really hard to track everything going on. Shout-out to Jessie, who does an amazing job tracking stats and players for all the practices. I probably got some of the details wrong (hard to see jersey numbers sometimes, but the big picture is hopefully directionally right). My main focus was on watching the Cal offense.
I was there for most of the scrimmage and saw 12 offensive drives. It was 11-on-11, starting on the offense’s 35 yard line, in full pads, but no real tackling to the ground (refs would blow the plays dead with a whistle). If the offense didn’t convert on 3rd downs, the drive ended (no punts) or a FG was attempted if in range.
Jack Plummer and Kai Millner had the vast majority of the snaps, taking turns after each drive was complete. The order and the results were:
- 1st drive: Plummer, marched down field resulting in a FG
- 2nd drive: Millner, pick 6 on the first play
- 3rd drive: Millner, turnover on downs
- 4th drive: Plummer, moved down the field resulting in TD pass
- 5th drive: Millner, turnover on downs
- 6th drive: Millner, moved down field resulting in FG
- 7th drive: Plummer, moved down field resulting in FG
- 8th drive: Millner, turnover on downs
- 9th drive: Millner, turnover on downs
- 10th drive: Plummer, gained 30-35 yards…but coaches stopped the drive and had a long FG attempt
- 11th drive: Millner, gained 30-35 yards …but coaches stopped the drive and had a long FG attempt
- 12th drive: Zach Johnson, pick 6 on the first play
- Later drives: Johnson went again, followed by Mendoza (at this point I left)
Bottom line: of the 12+ drives, only one resulted in a TD.
In the next few posts I’ll offer some observations…
